I blew through my coverage this year having 11 cavities filled and scaling done, so I will agree dental insurance isn't sufficient. Another aspect of this is the gap in quality rural dental care. How many people are facing enormous bills now thanks to substandard care earlier? https://t.co/ZrxdmR3o6n

Great article about #dentistry. ‘Underlying this “insurance” system in the U.S. is a broader, unstated premise that dental treatment is somehow optional, even a luxury. From a coverage standpoint, it’s as though the mouth is walled off from the rest of the body.’ #healthcarehttps://t.co/pvLXpRdbjC

A professor of economics at Elon University, Steve DeLoach, questions the logic:

It really defies logic. Why do we treat the inside of your mouth different that any other part of your body? Lots of economic problems here since an unhealthy mouth directly affects the health of the rest of your body (which is covered by typical insurance). https://t.co/RHCjABv2lj

Rachel Perrone of Washington, D.C., tells how she took it in the teeth for her son.

I brought my son in for a tooth that was coming in wonky and *hurting* him. But because that was considered orthodonture, not a penny of it was covered. I'll be paying on it forever. https://t.co/ZJ0KzvHpRB

In the story “California Lawmakers Seek Reparations For People Sterilized By The State” (April 16), Samantha Young’s use of the adjective “Spanish” to describe the predominantly Mexican Hispanic/Latino community in Hayward, Calif., should be reconsidered. I know this is a complicated descriptive-language issue, but the female population targeted for sterilization was heavily Mexican, and Rosie was of Mexican heritage in a community with little representation from Spain. I’d be inclined not to use the word “Spanish” to generalize about this community.

— Dave Hallock, Edmonds, Wash.

Why Punish The Ill?

Many of these incarcerated individuals who are receiving psychotropic medications have needed them for years but were unable to obtain them for any number of reasons (“Use Of Psychiatric Drugs Soars In California Jails,” May 4). It’s a shame that the only way they can get what their bodies require is to be imprisoned. In fact, the prisons are not just filled with criminals. In most states, inmate populations are made up largely of those with “medical needs” not “criminal rehabilitation needs.” A case of “the wrong doctors treating the wrong diseases.”